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Cameo Clips
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT/PROBATIVE SIMILARITY
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York decided that sufficient similarities existed to raise an issue of material fact as to whether the defendants' movie 'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story' copied from the plaintiffs' screenplay 'Dodgeball: The Movie.' Price v. Fox Entertainment Group Inc., 05 Civ.5259 SAS. In the Second Circuit, in which the district court resides, probative similarity is initially used by a copyright-infringement plaintiff to establish, through indirect evidence, the copying of original elements of the plaintiff's work.
Denying summary judgment for the defendants, the district court noted that 'a jury could reasonably find that the two works contain similarities that are probative of copying. Both works are superficial fast-moving comedies that spoof underdog sports films. Each work tells the story of a group of misfits led by the main character who forms an underdog dodgeball team, pitted against a stronger rival team of bullies led by the main character's nemesis. In each work, the underdog team decides to enter a national dodgeball tournament that awards prize money, which the team needs to save a business in distress ' The progression of the teams in each work is similar. ' Moreover, several characters that appear either in the Motion Picture or in [defendant Rawson] Thurber's earlier drafts share the name and certain characteristics of characters in the Thomas Work.'
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